Fourteen 
TEyn{S on jPlNE 

























4mer'iC<aA licit aool J}erric\ Co 

w St P^l. ' ' 

Fourteen 

TEAES ON JANE 

• •——•• 

BEING A RECORD 

of 

FOURTEEN YEARS’ 

SERVICE 

by the 

American Railroad 
Ditcher 



1920 

American Hoist Derrick 
Company 
St. c Paul, SbMinn. 




Copyright, 1920, by American Hoist Derrick Company, St. ‘Paul, zJxtinn. 


MAK I I 1920 






©C1A567238 



IF TOM SAWYER HAD ONLY BEEN 
PLAYING “HOOKEY” DOWN BY THE 
“KATY” TRACKS IN HANNIBAL, MIS¬ 
SOURI, ON A CERTAIN SUNSHINY MAY 
DAY IN 1905,WHAT A TALE HE COULD 
HAVE TOLD AUNT POLLY AT THE 
SUPPER TABLE THAT NIGHT 





NDEED he might, without overdrawing the 
facts, have made her none too severe anger over 
his latest escapade fade away into wondering 
curiosity at the mechanical marvel, all shiny and 
bright with paint, which the old reliable “Katy” 
had bought to dig the ditches along the tracks 
and take the place of the not overly 
ambitious negroes. 

Can’t you just see Tom, the sturdy 
little rascal, standing beside the track 
with his eyes greedily following every 
movement of the machine and his mouth 
wide open as if he had an auxiliary eye 
away back by his tonsils, somewhere, 
and didn’t want to miss a single move 
that the wonderful machine made? 




The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


And as every boy is a hero wor¬ 
shipper, and Tom certainly was all 
boy, how he would have admired 
Mr. C. M. H oes, the operator ot the 
machine! The wonderful magician, 
who, by pulling a lever, could send 
the big shovel plunging into a bank 
ol clay and dig out about a thousand, 
million, trillion bushels, more or less, 
in one swipe. And, no doubt, about 
that time Tom would have registered 
a solemn vow that as soon as he grew 
up and didn’t have to play “hookey” 
to avoid school, you betcha he was 
going to be a ditcher operator him¬ 
self It beat being a pirate all hollow. 

And, to tell the truth, there was 
real cause for wonder in what Tom 
would have seen, for the first Ameri¬ 
can Railroad Ditcher, the machine 
which was to revolutionize right- 
of-way ditching methods, was just 
starting out on a career which now, 
after 14 years, reads like a fairy tale. 
It is not a fairy tale, how¬ 
ever, but a true story 
of remarkable achieve¬ 
ment which has saved, 
no one can figure out 
how many millions of 
dollars, for the rail¬ 
roads. And the most 
wonderful thing about 
it all is, that the very 
first machine built, the 
one that was installed 
at Hannibal, Missouri, 
in May, 14 years 
ago, is still working 
every day, and, as the 


performance figures which we print 
on a succeeding page conclusively 
show, not taking a back-seat for the 
newest American out of the shop, 
although the latter shows many 
changes and improvements, and is, 
of course, a much better piece of 
mechanism. 

Right at the “jump-off” this 
wonderful old machine showed the 
stuff that was in it ; in a four davs’ 
ditching campaign following its in¬ 
stallation, it took 1337 yards out 
of the ditches, averaging 338 yards 
a day, or 58 yards an hour. The 
cost per yard, not including cost of 
work train, was 3.3 cents a yard. 

The results of this premier per¬ 
formance of the American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher become all the more 
wonderful when we remember that 
the men who were breaking-in this 
first ditcher were pioneering in the 
real sense of the word, and that, 
naturally, there was 
quite a bit of time lost 
during the first week 
or so, while the men 
in charge familiarized 

O 

themselves with the 
machine and its great 
possibilities. 

Besides its wonder¬ 
ful 14-year record, 
there is something else 
remarkable about this 
veteran ditcher and 
that is, Mr. C. M. 
Hoes, the operator. 
Mr. Hoes is, beyond 



[ 6 ] 





FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


question, the dean ol all ditcher operators, lor 
it was he who took charge of this old American 
when it was installed 14 years ago. And the 
great record which this machine has made since 
it was installed is the best testimony to Mr. 
Hoes’ ability and faithfulness to duty. But the 
choice ot Mr. II oes as skipper ol this machine 
was not made hap-hazard by the “ Katy ” 
officials in charge ol it. lie was an old and 
tried employee ol the “Katy” long belore he 
took the ditcher, having commenced working 
for them at Parsons, Kansas, in 1884. More¬ 
over, he was a thorough engineer and mechanic. 
In tact, he commenced work for the “Katy” 
as a machinist, and he has the distinction of being 
the first traveling 
air inspector the 
M. K. & T. Rail¬ 
way had. Mr. 

Hoes also worked 
as a locomotive 
engineer, and still 
holds engineer 
rights in Texas. 

For several years 
he was round¬ 
house foreman at 
Smithville, T exas, 
and it was Irom 
this position that 
he was recalled in the Spring ol 
1905 to take charge ol the first 
American Railroad Ditcher, which 
position he has filled with con¬ 
spicuous success ever since. On ac¬ 
count ol his long acquaintance with 
the American Railroad Ditcher, and 
his thorough mechanical knowledge, 
we are particularly proud ol Mr. 




J 



m 


Hoes’ statement that the American 
Railroad Ditcher is the best built 
and best working machine ol its 
kind. 

Time and again Mr. Hoes has 
been offered a new machine, but 
he confesses a real affection lor the 
old American and has declined 
the skippership ol several new 


ose [ 7 ] £*> 






The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 





















FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


Missouri,Kansas s. Texas Lines 


Operation of °*“tcHer No -57 forPeriod / t o J’O I9 l7 

' Divisio n 


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After i 2 years on line the first American performed like this 


machines, saying that he prefers to 
stick by the old-timer which he 
has piloted lor so many years. 

Of course, many improvements 
and refinements have been put on 
later model American Ditchers that 
were not thought ol when this old 
veteran went out “on line’’ tor the 
first time. It you will look closely 
at the pictures ot this old machine 
you will notice the odd looking 
plunger. When this American was 


built the plungerfeature had not been 
developed, but as soon as we began 
putting them on later models to poke 
mud and gumbo out ot the dipper, 
the “Katy” people saw the great 
value of this feature and made a 
plunger for their old American. 

It is seldom that the first machine 
of an entirely new type performs so 
well and so long in actual service as 
this old American Railroad Ditcher 
has done, and its performance is the 
best possible proof of the correct 
design and high-grade material that 
have characterized the American 
Railroad Ditcher from the very first. 

Like all the American Railroad 
Ditchers, this old machine has been 
used extensively lor auxiliary work, 
such as handling rails and other track 
material, bridge timbers, piling, etc. 
Mr. C. M. Hoes, the veteran operator 


o*3 [ 9 ] && 












































































The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


ot the machine, assures us that he 
has picked up as many as 642 rails in 
7 hours, taking the rails from where 
they lay scattered along the line. 

Let us see how this veteran 
ditcher has justified its cost in the 14 
years since it was installed. Take 
the monthly yardage shown on the 
preceding page, 6120 yards, a very 
conservative figure, and say that the 
ditching service covers 7 months of 
the year, which, again, is very moder¬ 
ate. That will give us a total yearly 
yardage of 42,840. Multiply this 
hy 14 and we get a grand total of 
599,760 yards. To he conservative, 
we’ll say that the saving per yard is 
only 1 5 cents. That will give us a 
total saving of $89,964.00 in the 14 


years of service. As this machine 
sold for $6000.00, it is apparent that 
it has saved its cost nearly fifteen 
times over at ditching alone; more 
than once a year. If the rail hand- 
ling and other uses for which this 
machine is used outside the ditching 
season were figured in, doubtless it 
would he shown that this old Ameri¬ 
can has saved its cost nearly twice 
every year since it was bought. 

At the top of page 9 we show a 
reproduction of this old American’s 
work sheet for September, 1917, 
when the machine had been out 
“on line” 12 years. We are not 
showing this month’s record be¬ 
cause it is in any way unusual or 
spectacular; because it isn t. The 



Mate*'*' 
mvJ "'" k 


'"toimaiion; 


Cfcaonw of Work 


feel Aicrogc Haul 
Delays 

Walling for cars 
Morinft machine 
Kcpuifii:|t machine 


Total Amount loaded 
Total amount unloaded 
htillut Condition* 


IVtlaytd by train* 
Other delay* 

Total 


Strain Nhorel 
Dltchrr 
Train Craw 
Repair Men 






Daily 

Wotkln# 


»- A 7 

-y- 


<E- £*»• 


T .„, ****',’ 


HIM 


[.<• •' »** 


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*■*’ *<»n „ 

Working 

“““to .f 11. 


0u, ‘ Work 


To, »l Amount 
Total . “ lo ^«J 


* Wa I 


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h 


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* j a— ’ 


Train CM" 

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Mon 

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Total 


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era M. P ^ and M. 

d--> 

Face of flank 

«M.* 

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C. Y. 

C. Y. 

C. Y 
C. Y. 

. C. V. 








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<7 




"enrau 




[ 10 ] eso 





FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


American didn’t do anything re¬ 
markable all month — except keep 
everlastingly at it; and in spite of 
one day lost moving, and another 
stolen from the ditching work, to do 
some work on a passing track, a total 
of 6 r 20 yards of material was taken 
out of the ditches and the cost per 
yard held down to cents. There 
were only 2 1 days of actual ditching. 

OTHER OI 

It was not long before the fame 
of the new machine that took the 
place of big gangs of hand laborers, 
and cut the cost of ditching over 
one-half, was spread abroad, and 
other roads became owners of 
American Railroad Ditchers. 

The following roads profited by 
the example of the “Katy” and 
became American Ditcher owners 
in the order named: 

Illinois Central Railroad 
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad 
Great Northern Railway 
Chicago & Northwestern Railway 


In looking over this table it is 
important to remember that the 
latest model American has a six¬ 
teenth of a yard larger dipper, and 
its generally improved design makes 
possible the attainment of a much 
higher daily yardage. On page 10 we 
show a few very recent daily reports 
of this old American, which prove 
that it is still keeping up the pace. 

D-TIMERS 



St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad 


Union Pacific System 
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad 
Northern Pacific Railway 
Southern Pacific Railway 
Canadian Pacific Railway 
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 
Pennsylvania Railroad 



[ 1 1 ] 








The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


LATER AMERICANS MORE THAN FULFILL PROMISE 


These later Americans more than 
fulfilled the promise which discern¬ 
ing railway maintenance men had 
read in the successful performance 
of the first American. Not one failed 
to prove its ability to dig ditches for 
a much lower cost per yard than the 
hand crew—more than that, every 



one of them did many things that 
no hand crew could do. They dug 
ditches in muck and gumbo that had 
defied the most willing hand crews; 
they cleared up slides before a regular 


steam shovel could have been pre¬ 
pared for shipment; they coaled 
locomotives when the coaling station 
burned or was blown down; they 
did emergency steam-shovel and 
pile-driver jobs; and in many other 
ways helped to keep trains running. 
In fact, the American proved that 
it could do so many useful things 
besides dig ditches that many rail¬ 
road men claim that to call it a 
Railroad Ditcher is misleading and 
only tells half the story. So many 
roads kept buying additional Ameri¬ 
cans and so many new roads began 
to see the light that the American 
family grew with phenomenal ra¬ 
pidity. On the succeeding pages we 
print a list of some of the biggest 
users of Americans with the number 
of machines which they have. 



[ 12 ] mo 









FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


THIRTY-TWO RAILROADS HAVE THREE 
OR MORE AMERICANS 



The family album is now 

in its 

Canadian Pacific Railway .... 

6 

third edition, and before the ink on 

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad 

8 



Denver & Rio Grande Railroad . 

8 

the following list is dry some of these 

Missouri, Pacific System .... 

6 

figures will have increased. 


Grand Trunk Pacific Railway 
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway . 

5 

5 

The Pennsylvania System 

20 

Seaboard Air Line Railway 

5 

The Harriman Lines. 

O 

Canadian Northern Railway . 

4 

The Southern Railway System 

1 9 

New York, New Haven & Hartford 


Northern Pacific Railway .... 

0 

Railway . 

4 

Santa Fe System. 

15 

Norfolk & Western Railway . 

4 

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad 

O 

St. Louis & San Francisco Railway . 

4 

Chicago, Milwaukee&St. Paul Railroad 

1 3 

Atlantic Coast Line. 

4 

New York Central System 

11 

Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway . 

4 

Louisville & Nashville Railway 

1 0 

Cuba Railroad (Island of Cuba) . 

4 

Union Pacific System. 

8 

Great Northern Railway .... 

3 

Chicago & Northwestern Railway 

7 

Anaconda Copper Mining Co. 

3 

Canadian Government Railways . 

7 

Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway 

3 


Soo Line. 3 



°s« [ 13 ] 











The AME RICAN RAILROAD DITCHER _ 

TWENTY-SEVEN OTHER ROADS HAVE TWO OR 

MORE AMERICANS 

THERE ARE OVER 500 IN DAILY USE 



o^3 [ 14 ] e*o 














FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


CUBA, MEXICO, SOUTH AMERICA, PHILIPPINES 



There are twelve Americans on 
various large and small roads in the 
Island ol Cuba, one on the Guayaquil 
6 c Quito Railroad in South America, 
one in the Philippines; and there 
were a number in Mexico before 
that country went into the revolution 
business, though what condition 
these are now in is hard to say. 
Even as sturdy a machine as the 
American is not proof against a 
machine gun manned by a peon 
full of aguardiente. 

But the significant thing about 
the use of the American Railroad 


Ditcher in these countries, where 
the wage paid to labor is so ridicu¬ 
lously low as to make it seem 
impossible that a machine could do 
the work any cheaper, is that they 
continue to use them. The fact 
that there are twelve Americans on 
the Island of Cuba proves that it 
pays. It pays because it is dependable. 
It celebrates no fiestas and has no 
tendency to take a siesta at mid¬ 
day. It works steadily, dependably 
and resultfully; and that’s something 
that no labor gang will do—in Cuba 
or anywhere else. 



[ 15 ] ©*> 












Above—The oldest American as it left our shops, May, 
Below —1920 model American 


1905 


Op 3 [ 16 ] 



































FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


RIG U T- OF - WAY DITCHING 


This is what the American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher was built for, and is 
perhaps the thing it does most 
resultfully. (Though you will find 
any number of maintenance men 
who will contest this statement in 
favor of any one of its twenty-odd 
auxiliary uses.) It takes the place 
of big, cumbersome, costly crews of 
hand shovelers, and not only halves 
the cost per yard, but digs more 
lineal feet of ditch in a season. 

Ditches we must have, for there 
is no question about the tact that dry 
ballast and roadbed are essential to 
safe track. To secure this, water that 
falls on the roadbed or is directed 
to it must be quickly drained oh. 
If it is allowed to stay in the sub¬ 
grade, “soft track” with its attendant 
troubles will result. Adequate drain¬ 
age usually can he secured by digging 
a ditch along the track deep enough 
to extend well below the ballast. 

The provision of the ditch is the 
main thing; next in importance is 
the need to dig the ditches as cheaply 
as possible. Until the American 
Railroad Ditcher entered the held 
it was almost impossible to complete 
a ditching program in season, even by 
absolutely forgetting costs. And, as a 
general thing, where hand crews were 
employed the cost per yard was a very 
painful thing to the men in charge 
of maintenance of way; something 
they did not care to dwell on. 

It is a well-known fact, that 
the average laborer, under the most 


favorable conditions, armed with a 
No. 2 shovel, and a No. i boss to 
keep him from stagnating, will pitch 
three-quarters of a yard an hour 
from ditch to car, or 754 yards in 
10 hours. At $1.50 a day (those 
old time prices, don’t they sound 
good?) this meant that every yard 
pitched out of the ditch cost 20 
cents. Under present labor prices 
it perhaps costs you more than twice 
as much. But, wait a minute, we 
were figuring on 10 hours straight 
work. This, of course, is an ideal 
condition which is seldom or never 
realized out “on line.” The ne¬ 
cessity of clearing for trains may cut 
the actual working time from 10 
hours to 3*3 . That would cut each 
laborer’s yardage down to 2^ a day, 
and, figuring the cost on the basis 
of the good old dollar and a half of 
the days that are no more, each 
yard shoveled up onto the fiat car 
would cost you 60 cents. At present 
prices it would cost—but why rub 
it in ? All this time we have been 
assuming that those hand shovelers 
were working in sand or ordinary 
dry dirt, hut what if you are trying 
to ditch a gumbo cut when it’s about 
90 in the shade? Or suppose there 
is icy water in the ditch. Conditions 
like that may very easily whoop the 
cost up from $ 1.00 a yard to as high 
as you care to figure it. All of 
which goes to demonstrate the fact 
that hand labor does not produce 
economical right-of-way ditches. 


[ 17 ] ^0 





The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


AMERICAN DITCHER FLAT CAR WORK TRAIN AND 
EXTRA GANG DITCHING RESULTS COMPARED 


Any railroad man who has charge 
ol track maintenance will admit that 
a machine which, in 4 months’ 
work, can do approximately 25 per 
cent more work than a hand crew 
will do in the same time, and net a 
saving ol 2500 cold, hard dollars, 
is very much worth investigating. 
That’s what an American Railroad 
Ditcher, working on a flat car work 
train such as is shown in the illustra¬ 
tion below, did on the Fort Smith <$c 
Western Railroad. We have the 


figures to prove it. In looking these 
over, please bear in mind that 
labor costs when this work was done 
were much lower than at present. 
The saving which the American 
would effect in the same sort of a 
competition today would be much 
greater in actual dollars and cents. 

It is important to remember that 
the unloading was done by hand in 
both cases. As the cost of the work 
train would he the same in either 
case, this has not been figured in. 


THE HAND CREW-COST AND RESULTS 


Month 

Cars 

Yards 

Cost 

Per Yard 

July 

• • • 

2200 

$794.00 

$0.36 

August 

5 2 4 

3668 

I 378.OO 

o -37 

September 

372 

264O 

880.OO 

°- 34 

October 

3 °o 

2 I OO 

764.OO 

0.36 

November 

280 

349 ° 

1 2 56.OO 

0.36 



14098 

$5072.00 



THE AMERICAN—COSTS AND RESULTS 


Month 

Cars 

Y ards 

Cost 

Labor 

Total 

Per Yard 

December 

324 

3888 

$1 58.OO 

$26 I .OO 

$419.00 

$0.11 

January 

289 

3468 

258.OO 

157.00 

4 I 5.00 

O. 1 2 

February 

329 

394 8 

234.0° 

I 48.OO 

382.OO 

O. IO 

March 

247 

2964 

223.OO 

I 50.OO 

373.OO 

O. I 2 

— 

_ 

14268 

_J_»_ 


$1589.00 




III 4 months With the American, Ditching and unloading by hand, per yard $ .36 
as Compared With 4 months Ditching with the American, unloading 

all-hand work, approxi¬ 
mately 25 per cent 
more work 
done at over 
$2500.00 
saving. 

































FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


OTHER AMERICAN FEAT CAR WORK TRAIN SAVINGS 


| CHESAPEAKE & OHIO 
RAILWAY 


MISSOURI, KANSAS & TEXAS 
RAILWAY 


It used to cost these people a It was costing them 37 cents a 
dollar or more for every yard that yard to dig right-of-way ditches by 
came out of their ditches, much hand. One of their American Rail- 
of the material being boulders road Ditchers was detailed to do the 
and stiff gumbo. Their American job and immediately the cost per 
Railroad Ditchers did the same yard fell to 19 cents, 
work for 40 cents a yard. 



C. R. I. & P. RAILWAY 

This road replaced a ditching 
gang of 67 hand shovelers that had 
been getting out 144 yards a day 
at a cost of 66^2 cents a yard, 
with an American Railroad Ditcher. 
Result was they whooped up the 
daily yardage to 264 yards, walloped 
the cost per yard down to 4 cents 
and saved $84.20 a day. This does 
not include cost of work train. 


THE FORT SMITH & WESTERN 
RAILROAD 

used a gang of 33 men at special 
cut ditching work. They used to 
dig an average of 185 cubic yards a 
day at a daily cost, including work 
train, of $52.70, putting 7 yards on 
each flat car. 

The labor gang was then displaced 
by an American Railroad Ditcher, 
which loaded 220 yards a day. The 
daily cost, including work 
train, was $29.52. The 
American put 1 1 yards on 
each Hat car. 

Cost per day of hand ditching $52.70 
Cost per day with American 29.52 
Daily saving of American $23.18 








The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


THE AMERICAN DUMP CAR WORK TRAIN 


Fourteen years ago, when the first 
American was put out, ditching on 
a large scale was done with hig extra 
gangs which loaded the material 
onto fiat cars. The American merely 
displaced the gang, at first, the fiat 
car train being retained. The Ameri¬ 
can traveled the length ot the train 
on its own portable track sections, 
loading the cars with material dug 
from the ditches as it progressed. 

This was such a revolutionary ad¬ 
vance over the hand-crew method 
and chalked up such a worth-while 
saving per cubic yard, that at first 
all the delighted maintenance of way 
men could do was pinch themselves to 
see if they really were awake, and that 
the doing away with the big ditching 
gangs was not just a pleasant dream 
after all. 

But having- become used to the 
savings in time, money and worry 
eff ected by the American, progressive 
maintenance men began to wonder 
if some improvement couldn’t be 
made in the arrangement of the 
ditching train; something that would 


do awav with the necessity of string¬ 
ing the cable of the unloader plow, 
etc. And so the American Dump Car 
Work Train came into being. The 
American Dump Car Work Train 
consists of an American Railroad 
Ditcher, mounted on a fiat car 
between two 16 or 20-yard dump 
cars and propelled by a light loco¬ 
motive. 

This dump car ditching train can 
be unloaded at almost any point for 
filling bridges, widening banks, or 
wasting the spoil. It can he used 
most effectively where the length 
of haul from the cut to the dump¬ 
ing point does not exceed 4 miles. 
As the train can be handled rapidly 
and requires only a short length of 
sidetrack to hold it, it can easily be 
kept out of the way of regular trains, 
thus causing no interference with traf¬ 
fic and, at the same time, keeping 
time lost clearing for trains down to 
the lowest possible figure. 

On one road, with an average 
haul ot 1 to 4 miles, the train makes 
10 to 20 trips per day. In that 
time it handles more material than 
a work train of 1 5 fiat cars (1 o cubic 
yards per car) with ditcher and 
unloader plow. 








FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


ESTIMATING DAILY YARDAGE AND COST PER YARD 



With the diagram shown on this 
page it is possible to estimate with 
accuracy the amount and cost of the 

J 

work that can he done in this way 
with a train having one ditcher 
and two 20-yard dump cars. The 
diagram is for ditches from 2 to 3 
feet deep. The excavating capacity 
is 60 yards an hour, the train speed 


20 miles an hour, and the distance 
to switch or dump 2 miles. The 
daily cost of the work train, wages, 
fuel, oil, interest and depreciation, 
is taken at $53.76. 

When digging a ditch 2 feet deep 
and actually working 6 hours a day, 
the daily yardage will be 280 cubic 
yards, and the cost per yard, 20 cents. 



oN3 [2l] 









































<The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


DITCHING TOUGH CLAY FOR FROM 8 TO 11 

CENTS A YARD 


The Georgia 6c Florida Railway, 
used one ot its American Railroad 
Ditchers to ditch a number of cuts 
in tough “calico” clay. The Ameri¬ 
can was mounted on a Hat car be¬ 
tween two 20-yard dumps. Besides 
the ditcher operator, fireman and 
2 laborers, there was a train crew 
made up ol an engineer, a conductor 
and a bagman. 


The wages of all the men totalled. 


per day . 

$25.00 

Locomotive, per day .... 

0 
, 0 

1 

i y?, tons coal for ditcher 

4.50 

Three cords wood for locomotive 

5.10 

Ditcher. 

0 

0 

lA 

Dump cars. 

O 

O 

LA 

Camp cars. 

I .OO 



Flat car 



Total cost per day 


Working io hours a day this 
train ditched the clay cuts and 
deposited the material on hlls for 
a cost ranging from 8 to i i cents. 






c £3 [ 22 ] £& 











FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 



HANDLING GUMBO EOR II CENTS A YARD 


Halt a mile east of Beloit, Alabama, 
on the Myrtlewood Division, the 
Louisville 6c Nashville Railroad 
ditched a gumbo cut where the 
material was so sticky that it would 
not slide out ot the dump cars. It 
had to he shovelled out. Every 
dippertul had to be poked out with 
the plunger, and were it not tor this 
patented and exclusive feature, it 
would have been necessary to loosen 
the material with hand shovels. 

On this job the American was 
used between two 16-yard dump 


cars. Thirty-two of these cars were 
loaded in a day and hauled i % miles 
to dump. The total daily yardage 
was 5 i 2 yards and the cost ot the 
ditching train was $52.50, making 
the cost per yard less than 1 1 cents. 

As stated, the material which was 
dug out ot the cut was so sticky 
that it would not slide out ot the 
dump cars, which were doored with 
wood. It had to be dug out by 
laborers. This tact makes the cost 
of less than 1 1 cents a yard still 

J 

more remarkable. Another teature 
of this job which adds interest to 
the 1 1 cents a yard tigure is that 
at tirst they were using hand dump 
cars, which had to be righted by 
hand after they were dumped. 
Sometimes it took 10 or 12 men 
to do this. 


<£3 [ 23 ] 











The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


AVERAGING 623 YARDS A DAY FOR 30 DAYS WITH 

A DUMP CAR WORK TRAIN 


During November, 1917, the 
Southern Railway’s American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher, No. D.M. 1 7, worked 



on what is known as the Coster 
Division. During the month under 
consideration it actually worked 25 
days, in which a daily average 
of 623 yards of material was taken 
out of the ditches, dumped on fulls, 
and leveled off. The American was 
used between two dump cars, which 


were dumped by hand, there being a 

laborer on each car for that purpose. 

On November 1st, the American 

commenced work at 6 a. m. and 

stopped at 4:30 p. m. Train service 

held up the work for 2 hours, and 

another hour was consumed taking 

on coal and water, leaving 7 *4 

hours actual working time. In this 

time 704 yards of material were 

taken out of the ditches, dumped 

on a fill and leveled off with the 

spreader. On this day a ton of coal, 

1200 gallons of water, a quart of 

oil and a pound of waste were used 

in the operation of the ditcher. 

The actual cost of the ditching 

crew per day was as follows: 

Operator.$ 3 - 33/4 

Fireman.2.16^2 

Two laborers at each $1.55 . 3.10 

Total. $8.60 



o £3 [ 24 J && 












FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


WHAT THE AMERICAN DID DAY BY DAY 


Date 

Hours on Line 

Delays 

Time Worked 

Number of 

Cars Loaded 

Daily Yardage 

Nov. 1 

10^2 

3 

7 / 

44 

704 

Nov. 2 

• 0/4 

3>4 

7 

48 

768 

Nov. 3 

6 


Cleaning 

out boiler 


Nov. 5 

I O 

3 / 

6/ 

36 

576 

Nov. 6 

1 O 

3 

7 

4 2 

672 

Nov. 7 

IO 

3/ 

6 >4 

53 

848 

Nov. 8 

1 O 

3 >4 

6/ 

48 

768 

Nov. 9 

I O 

3 

7 

42 

672 

Nov. 10 

7 

• . 

7 

28 

448 

Nov. 1 2 

10 

5 

5 

2 4 

384 

Nov. 1 3 

10 

354 

6 y 2 

48 

768 

Nov. 14 

1 0 

3)4 

614 

4 2 

672 

Nov. 1 5 

10 

3/2 

6 y 2 

43 

688 

Nov. 16 

10 

1 >4 

8 34 

54 

864 

Nov. 1 7 

7 >4 

1 

6)4 

28 

448 

Nov. 1 9 

10 

+/ 

5 / 

28 

448 

Nov. 20 

10 

5 

3 

3 2 

5 1 2 

Nov. 21 

10 

3 / 

6 f 4 

44 

7°4 

Nov. 22 

10 

3 

7 

44 

704 

Nov. 23 

10 

3 

7 

4 2 

672 

Nov. 24 

7 

2 

5 

24 

384 

Nov. 26 

10 

4/4 

5 / 

28 

448 

Nov. 27 

10 

4/4 

5/4 

3 6 

576 

Nov. 28 

10 

3 / 

6/ 

40 

640 

Nov. 29 

10 

4 

6 

4 2 

672 

Nov. 30 

10 


5 / 

3° 

480 


Total hours worked.i 5 9 

Total number of cars loaded.970 

Total yardage.15,520 

Average daily yardage . 623 

Estimated cost of dump car train, per day.$30.00 

Daily cost, ditcher and train.$38.60 

Cost per yard.$.0619 



[ 25 ] S^c 









































The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


THE DOUBLE DITCHER DUMP CAR WORK TRAIN 


The Double Ditcher Dump Car 
Work Train is an outgrowth ol 
the single ditcher train. It was 
developed by several roads to do in¬ 
tensive ditching on heavily traveled 
lines where the working time be¬ 
tween trains is very limited. With 
the Double Ditcher Dump Car Work 
Train it is possible to Ell four dump 
cars in the same time required 
by one ditcher to Ell two. That 


means twice as much ditching 
without a proportionate increase in 
cost, because only one locomotive 
and train crew are needed. 

The Southern Railway has oper¬ 
ated double dump car ditching trains 
with great success, as have also the 
Rock Island, the Illinois Central, 
the Kansas City Southern Railway, 
the A. T. 6c S. F., and others. 




The Kansas C ity Southern found 
that they were able to put i 5 yards 
into each ol the lour dump cars in 
25 minutes, making an average ol 
40 to 45 minutes for each train 
handled. 



[ 26 ] 






FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


COMPARISON OF 
DOUBI 


COST AND RESULTS OF SINGI 
,E DITCHER WORK TRAINS 


T 


AND 



The figures below are based on 
prices prevailing before the war. 
By using them as a working basis 
the cost under existing conditions 

O 

can easily be determined. 


COST OF SINGLE DITCHER 
WORK TRAIN 

Two automatic air dump cars $3,500.00 
Freight (estimated) on above 250.00 
One 80,000-pound flat . . 800.00 

Ditcher.6,000.00 

Freight (estimated) on above 250.00 

Total.$10,800.00 


$ 10,800.00 times 2 = $2 1,600.00, cost of Double 


Ditcher Work Train 


COST PER CUBIC YARD 
SINGLE DITCHER WORK TRAIN 


Interest per day on train at 6 per 

cent, 312 days.$2.07 

Depreciation on ditcher at 8 per 


cent . 

Depreciation on dump car train 

1.54 

at 8 per cent . 

OO 

Coal, one ton at $2.50 for ditcher 

2.50 

Oil, waste, etc., for ditcher . 
Coal, two tons at $2.50 for loco- 

.50 

motive. 

Ditcher engineer at $125.00 per 

0 

0 

L/-\ 

month.. 

4. 80 

Oil, waste, etc., on locomotive . 

I .OO 

Ditcher fireman at $1.50 . 

1.50 

Train conductor. 

"O 

O 

Two brakemen at $2.50 . 

O 

O 

1 y— 

Locomotive engineer .... 

5.00 

Locomotive fireman .... 

1.50 

Total. 

$ 36.26 


DOUBLE DITCHER WORK TRAIN 


Interest per day on train at 6 per 


cent, 3 1 2 days. 

$ 4 - 

14 

On two ditchers. 

3 

08 

On four dump cars and two flats . 

1 

70 

Coal for two ditchers .... 

5 

00 

Oil, waste, etc., two ditchers . 

1 

00 

Coal for locomotive .... 

5 

00 

Two ditcher engineers .... 

9 

60 

Oil, waste, etc., on locomotive . 

1 

00 

Two ditcher firemen .... 

3 

00 

Train conductor. 

5 

00 

Two brakemen at $2.50 . 

5 

00 

Locomotive engineer .... 

5 

00 

Locomotive fireman .... 

1 

5 ° 

Total. 

$5 0 

02 


$36.26-^-200 yards per day:=$o. 181 3, cost 
per cubic yard with Single Ditcher Work Train. 

$50.02-^-400 yards per day = $o. 1 2505, cost 
per cubic yard with Double Ditcher Work Train. 

$0.18 1 3 —$0.1 2 505 = $0.0 562 5. 

Thus it will be seen that the Double Ditcher 
Work Train will do right-of-way ditching at a saving 
of $0.05625 per cubic yard, over the Single Ditcher 
Work Train. 


[ 27 ] 







The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


TRIPLE DITCHER WORK TRAIN 


A Triple Ditcher Work Train; 
three American Railroad Ditchers 
and six dump cars, has been used 
by the Queen & Crescent (Southern 
Railway), Big Four, and others, to 
test out the ability of this arrange¬ 
ment to ditch heavily traveled lines. 
The experiments showed some won¬ 
derfully last ditching work, and a 
further cut in the cost from the 
figures obtained in double ditcher 
ditching train work. 

The following figures were 
worked out with the cost of a 
single ditcher train as a basis: 


Interest per day on train at 6 per 


cent, 3 1 2 days to year . 

$6.2 1 

Interest per day on two ditchers . 

4.62 

Interest per day on six dump cars 
and three flats. 

2.55 

Coal for three ditchers, 3 tons 

7.50 

Oil, waste, etc., for ditchers . 

1.50 

Coal for locomotive .... 

5.00 

Three ditcher operators 

14.40 

Oil, waste, etc., on locomotive . 

1.00 

Three ditcher firemen .... 

4.50 

Train conductor. 

0 

0 

Two brakemen at $2.50 . 

5.00 

Locomotive engineer .... 

5.00 

Locomotive fireman .... 

1.50 

Total. 

$ 63.78 


$63.78-^600 yards per dav = $o. 1063, cost 
per cubic yard with Triple Ditcher Dump Car 
Work Train. 

$0. 1813 cost per yard, Single Ditcher Train, 
o. 1063 cost per yard, Triple Ditcher Train. 

$0.0750 saved by Triple Ditcher Train. 

It is probable, though, that the 
saving of money will not interest 
some railroad men so much as the 
fact that a Triple Ditcher Dump 
Car Train will enable them to ditch 
cuts on heavily traveled lines that 
they have been unable to ditch 
properly in any other way. 

The three ditchers treble the 
results with no increase in train 
cost. 

The 200 yards on which the 
above averages are based is a very 
conservative estimate and allows for 
only 5 hours’ actual work. 

This rapid fire method, as we 
have said, is especially effective for 
ditching on roads that have a heavy 
train service, hut as it simply means 
more ditching done in less time, for 
less money, it is applicable to any 
road under any kind of service. 



It should be borne in mind that the above figures are based on pre- 
war costs. 








FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


ONE MAINTENANCE MAN’S CONCLUSIONS 

The General Superintendent of Maintenance 
of Way of a large eastern system that has over a 
dozen American Railroad Ditchers, made these 
three points in an article on “Labor Saving 
Devices for Track Maintenance”: 

1st. In normal railroad maintenance, labor 
costs amount to as much, often more, than all 
other items combined, averaging from 50 to 55 
per cent. 

2nd. The cost of hand crew service in ditch¬ 
ing and other maintenance work has advanced 
40 per cent during the past year, and 100 per 
cent in 10 years. 

3rd. The loading capacity of the American 
is about 60 cubic yards an hour in ordinary 
material, with a ditcher crew of three men. 

It would require 100 men to load this amount 
by hand. 

Th ese are the kind of results that have led the 
leading roads of this country to dispense with 
the unsatisfactory and inefficient hand crew and 
install American Railroad Ditchers. 


0&3I [ 29 ] @|0 



The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


AMERICAN ELECTRIC DITCHER 


The American Electric Railway 
Ditcher was designed to fill the needs 
of electric railways. It is identically 
the same as the steam operated 
machine except that the steam boiler 
and engine are replaced by a motor 
and controller. The first machine of 
this type was installed on the Kansas 
City, Clay County and St. Joseph 
Railway, just in time to clean up a 
series of clay slides caused by a spell 
of exceptionally heavy rains. These 
slides along the St. Joseph Division 
were so heavy as to completely tie 
up the line. Referring to its work 
on this occasion, Air. J. R. Harrigan, 
General Alanager, said: “ I assure 


you that having this ditcher avail¬ 
able to clean up these slides was 
one of the luckiest things that ever 
happened to me. I am very much 
pleased with the operation of this 
machine.” 

During its first year of service this 
machine handled a very large amount 
of material for a cost of approxi¬ 
mately i 2 cents a yard. Besides, the 
condition of the track was improved 
so much by the thorough ditching 
it received, that delays in train service 
were cut to a very low figure. This 
electric ditcher easily handles 350 
yards in a 9-hour day, working in 
a regular dump car train. 




oT 3 [ 30 ] KHo 








FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


\\ hen this road did its ditching; 

o 

by hand they used to manage to get 
out 20,000 yards a year, and every 
yard cost them 40 cents. With 
the American Edectric Ditcher 
they are now getting out a yearly 
average of 50,000 yards and the total 
operating cost o± the ditcher during 
the %y 2 months ditching season is 
56630.00, against 58000.00, for 
the hand crew. 

These people now have the cost 
per yard down to 7 cents, a saving 
of 5 5 cents a yard over the hand 
method. 


Following; are cost fig;ures cover- 

O O 

ing an average day’s work: 

Work— Right-of-way ditching, cut widen¬ 
ing, and bank filling. 

Material —Clay, fairly dry and tough. 

Length of Day— Fourteen hours. 

Time Actually Working —Seven and one-half 
hours. This includes the time consumed 
by ditching, dumping and traveling to and 
from the siding. 

Crew— Ditcher crew, operator and 2 
laborers. Train crew, motorman and 
conductor. 


Daily Cost 


Payroll (14 hours a day). 

$18.06 

Power bill. 

5.00 

Oil and waste. 

• 5 ° 

Interest on investment (5 per cent) 

1.50 

Incidentals. 

1.00 

Daily operating expenses . 

$26.06 



o£3 [ 3 I ] £4o 






The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


LAYING TRACK AND DRIVING PILES WITH AN 
AMERICAN ELECTRIC DITCHER 



The Oklahoma Railway was the 
second electric line to install an 
American Electric Ditcher. They 
at once set this machine to work on the 
new line from Edmond to Guthrie, 
Oklahoma, laying track, driving 
P ii es, placing caps, stringers, etc. 


More than i ooo leet ol trestle build¬ 
ing was included in this. The piles 
driven varied from 28 to 58 feet in 
length and the penetration was from 
7 to 1 3 feet in sand and shale. One 1 5 
bent trestle was driven and completed 
bv this electric American in 6 days. 



[ 32 ] B 4 P 











FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


The actual cost of building the 
i ooofeetol trestle which was handled 
by the American was $3.12 a loot. 
This includes all wages and expense 
outside ol the cost ol the material 
itself. Officials ot the Oklahoma 
Railway stated that the cost ol doing 
the work with the American was 30 
per cent under the best contractor’s 
bid covering the same work. 

This machine has also been used 
extensively lor steam shovel work. It 

J 


took 10,5 72 yards of hard packedsand 
out of one cut, working down in the 
cut and dumping into 16-yard dump 
cars on the bank. Only two cars 
were available, so while these were 
being dumped the American could 
do nothing. Yet it got out as high 
as 412 yards a day under these con¬ 
ditions. This electric American also 
was used to set trolley poles. These 
people have since purchased another 
electrically operated American. 


AUXILIARY USES 


While the American Railroad 
Ditcher, as its name implies, was 
originally developed to dig right-of- 
way ditches, we did not lose sight 
of the desirability ol having it do as 
many other kinds ot useful work 
as possible, in order that its owners 
might keep it busy every day, rain 
or shine, and secure the greatest 
possible return on their investment. 
Hardly a month goes by without 
our hearing of some new auxiliary 
use to which the ditcher has been 
put, until now, the list ot such 


work is so long that often we have 
wondered whether we were not 
doing the American a real injustice 
by calling it merely a railroad 
ditcher. 

On the following pages we de- 
scribeandillustratea number ot actual 
jobs performed by the American. 
In each instance we have tried to 
select a good typical case in order 
to ffive railroad men a true idea of 

O 

how efficiently the American per¬ 
forms these many and varied kinds 
ot work. 


<*3 [ 33 ] 





The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


STEAM SHOVEL WORK 



To illustrate this particular angle 
of the American’s usefulness, we 
are going to describe its work in 
some of the most difficult material a 
steam shovel ever was set into— 
disintegrated granite. 

When Mr. R. J. 
Barry, Superintendent 
of the H. 6c T. Central 
Railway, wanted to get 
out some material for 
ballasting track, he 
called for bids based on 
taking the dirt out of 
his borrow-pit at Kings- 
land, Texas. The con¬ 
tractors came, they saw 
and they figured, and their figures 
were so high that they nearly 
bowled Mr. Barry over—12 cents 

J 

a yard, no less! But if you look 
closely at the pictures we show, you 
won’t blame them much, because 
the material stood up like the wall 
of a fort and the dipper teeth gnawed 
shiny channels in the stubborn stuff. 
Mr. Barry thanked the contractors 
kindly for figuring, but made a 
mental vow, that if they got 12 
cents a yard out of the EE 6c T. 


Central, they’d get it over his dead 
body. While he was doping out 
ways and means he happened to 
think of his road’s American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher, and decided to give 
it a tryout in his borrow-pit. 

As stated, the material handled is 
a disintegrated granite, very hard, 
and containing occasional ledges of 
solid granite. At first the material 
was handled without blasting, except 
when it became necessary to get a 
ledge of solid granite out of the way, 
but later on it was found advisable 
to “shoot” the material before at¬ 
tempting to load it. 

The cars usually set in to be loaded 
are of the hopper bottom type, 
100,000 pounds capacity. They 
hold from 35 to 45 cubic yards of 
gravel. When enough cars were 
available, the American loaded as 
many as twelve a day. 

The American operated over its 
two portable sections laid on the 
ground, while the cars to be loaded 
were set in beside it on the perma¬ 
nent track. No locomotive was kept 
in attendance to spot cars. Instead, 
a string of empties was set in every 



[ 34 ] 











FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


/ 


morning and the American did its 
own spotting by means of the pull¬ 
back line. This feature alone is a 
great advantage over an ordinary 
steam shovel. 

This Pit is about a quarter of a 
mile long and the average height of 
the face is 20 feet. 

Idle American loads material out 
of this pit for .046 cents a yard, which 
indicates a very gratifying saving 
over the 1 2 cents a yard, which was 
the best contract price submitted. 

While Air. Barry’s experiences 
with the American as a steam shovel 
was most gratifying. Alany other 
ditcher owners have done at least 
equally well. Invariably they have ex¬ 
pressed surprise that a machine with 
so small a shovel could make such 
an excellent yardage record in com¬ 
parison with the work done by large 
steam shovels. Of course, the explana¬ 
tion lies in the much greater speed 
and mobility of the American. It 


makes more passes per minute than 
the large shovel, and can move for¬ 
ward and commence digging again 
in hut a fraction of the time that a 
regulation steam shovel requires for 
the same operation. 

Another important advantage 
which the American has over the 
regular steam shovel is the fact that 
it gets along with a much smaller 
crew of men. Following is the usual 
crew line-up used with the ditcher 
when doing steam shovel work: 

One operator 

One fireman 

One laborer 

One man and team (to haul coal and water) 

When material is being loaded 
into wagons and it is not convenient 
to bring the wagons alongside the 
machine, the full circle swing of the 
American allows wagons to he loaded 
directly behind the ditcher, or at any 
point in the 6o-foot radius of the 
machine. 



s 


[ 35 ] 





The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


GRADING FOR STREET RAILWAY TRACKS 



Grading lor track is one of the 
many things the American does well. 
It will grade a city street for track 
as well as a steam shovel that can do 
nothing else. Then it will go hack 

and lay the track; 
something that the 
regulation steam 
shovel cannot do. 

In 1917 the 
Chicago, North 
Shore N Milwau¬ 
kee Railroad Com¬ 
pany extended 
their tracks about 
a mile through the 
streets ot Wauke¬ 
gan, Illinois, doing 
the work with 
their American Railroad Ditcher. 
The specifications called for a cut 
only 9 feet wide and from 1 8 inches 
to 2 feet 8 inches deep. This was 
for a single track line. 


The American worked over its 
own portable track sections, which 
it transferred as it progressed. The 
material was loaded into dump carts, 
seven teams being kept busy all the 
time, and more would have been re¬ 
quired, only the haul was very short. 

T he work was done over very old 
streets, partly macadamized, and the 
digging was very hard. In spite of 
this, the American took out a daily 
average of 200 yards. The total 
amount of material excavated was 
in the neighborhood of 5000 yards. 

No hand work was put on the 
grade after the American had passed, 
the concrete being run onto it just 
as the American had left it. 

When the grading job was com¬ 
pleted and the men in charge checked 
up their costs they found that they 
had saved about 25 cents a cubic yard 
over the best hid received from a 
contractor. 









FOURTEEN YEARS ON FINE 


PILE DRIVING 


So many roads have used American 
Railroad Ditchers lor driving piles 
that we could devote a large and very 
instructive hook to this angle of the 
American’s usefulness, but as it is 
necessary to limit ourselves to one 
instance ot the American’s efficiency 
at this work, we will tell you how 
the Boyne City, Gaylord & Alpena 
built a 340-loot temporary trestle 
with their American. 

Thistrestle was intendedlor filing 
in and was built ol 3-pile bents, the 
two outside piles being driven at a 
batter, and 8 x 8 caps used. The trestle 
was from 1 o to 16 feet high and the 
piles used ranged in length from 1 6 
to 24 feet. The ditcher worked on the 
grade line on 12-foot portable track 
sections, traveling over the trestle 
on temporary stringers as the pile 


bents were driven and capped. In 
this way from eight to nine 1 2-foot 
bents were driven in a day, a daily 
average of 100 feet of completed 
trestle. An especially interesting fact 
about this job is that the piles used 
were all “dead heads” and “sinkers” 
which the American fished out of 
the river. During the construction 
of this trestle 70-pound steel rails 
were used for temporary stringers, 
underneath regular ties, and 70- 
pound steel to pass the dirt cars over 
when filing the trestle. The steel 
stringers were pulled out and the 
track laid and lined up when the fill 
reached sub-grade. Phis saved the 
road the cost of permanent stringers. 
The cost of caps, nails and labor was 
$3.75 per bent. 



[ 37 ] ^0 













The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


COAL HANDLING —LOADING LROM STORAGE PILE 


Practically every road that owns 
American Railroad Ditchers sooner 
or later uses them for loading 
storage coal, and we have yet to 
hear of one which was not able to 
effect economies over the hand 
gang or the big steam shovel. 

The following 6-day coal load¬ 
ing record of the Northern Pacific 
in Montana is not presented here 
because it is exceptional, but, on 
the contrary, because it is typical. 

The coal was in a shallow, 
scattered stock pile, the American 
had to lay its own track and spot 
cars on the loading track. The 
coal-loading operation covered a 
period of 6 days. The following 
record shows what was done each 
day and what it cost per ton to load 
this coal. 


Monday — Loaded five 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 5 hours. Cost 

per ton.$.062 

Tuesday — Loaded six 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 6 hours. Cost 

per ton.$.0525 

Wednesday —Loaded seven 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 6 hours. Cost 

per ton.$.0475 

Thursday -—Loaded seven 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 7 hours. Cost 

P er ton . $-°47 5 

Friday — Loaded five 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 6 hours. Cost 

per ton. $.062 

Saturday — Loaded five 50-ton gondolas. 
Actual working time, 5 hours. Cost 
per ton. $.062 

Note —This work was done in November, 
1916, when wages were not so high as 
now. 

Below is table of costs per day. 
By making allowance for present 
wage conditions, the cost of doing 
the same work today can easily be 
determined. 


Crew Cost: 


Engineer. 

• • $ 4 - 5 ° 

Fireman. 

2.15 

Helper. 

1.75 

Three laborers at $ 1.3 5 . 

4-°5 


$12.45 

Coal, one ton .... 

. . $4.00 

Oil. 

• • • 3 ° 

Total cost per day 

• $16.75 



[ 38 ] ©4o 




















FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


UNLOADING COAL FROM GONDOLAS 


For this work the dipper and 
dipper arm are removed and a clam¬ 
shell bucket put on instead. Many 
roads have used the American lor 
this purpose and held the cost per ton 
to a very low hgure. The C. & E. I. 
unloaded 4754 tons of coal in this 
way at Villa Grove, Illinois, using a 
three-quarter yard clam-shell bucket. 

The cost of the entire operation 


was as follows: 

* 

Labor and supplies . . . . $238.93 

Temporary tracks .... 54.67 

Total. $293.60 


This makes the cost per ton 
$0.0618. However, as this hgure 
includes a number of items not 
usually included in such costs, we 
will give the actual cost of opera¬ 
ting the American itself. The cost 
per day in wages, fuel and supplies, 


was as follows: 

Engineer. $4.00 

Fireman. 2.25 

Helper. 2.00 

Fuel, supplies, etc. .50 

Cost per day .... $8.75 


An average of about 200 tons a 
day was unloaded. These costs are, 
of course, low in comparison with 
present-day figures, but allowing 
tor the differences in wages, etc., 
an accurate idea of what similar 
work would cost today can he 
arrived at. 




<393 [ 39 ] ©«o 




















The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


COALING LOCOMOTIVES 


This operation has been handled 
in diderent ways, by different roads. 
In cases where the coal was put into 
the tender direct from a stock pile 
it was lound advantageous to leave 
on the regular dipper. In most 
cases, however, the coal was taken 
from gondolas necessitating the use 
of a y -yard clam-shell bucket. 

As an unusually interesting and 
successful example of such use of 
the American, we will describe 
how it was used near Givens, Ohio, 
on the Northern Division of the 
C. & O. Railway. 

These people had such great faith 
in the ability of the American Rail- 

J 

road Ditcher to coal locomotives 
economically, that they installed 
one of their machines as a semi¬ 
permanent coal-handling plant on a 
short trestle between the main line 
and a short spur, on the division 
which connects Sciotoville with 
Waverly. A string; of “eons” loaded 

J O O 


with coal is switched onto the spur, 
and the American, operating a y - 
yard clam, puts this coal aboard the 
tenders. This installation has justi¬ 
fied itself by doing some remarkably 
fast coaling. This machine has 
loaded i 5 tons into a tender in less 
than 7 minutes. 



This American is operated in two 
1 2-hour shifts, no other help than 
an operator and a fireman being 
required for each shift. 



[ 40 ] 










FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


PLACING RIPRAP 



in loaded on Hats. The dipper and 
dipper arm were taken oft one of the 
road’s American Railroad Ditchers 
and a pair of stone grabs hooked 
onto the hoisting line. The ditcher 
then unloaded the stone and placed 
it on the bank at the rate of four 
cars an hour — or one car in 15 
minutes. The ditcher was chained 
to the car while making the lifts, 
though this really was not necessary. 
It was thought wise to do it, how¬ 
ever, on account of the dangerous 
location in which the work had to 
be done. 

The crew consisted of 4 men: the 
ditcher operator and his fireman, and 
2 men to adjust the grab hooks. The 

labor cost per day 
was $9.00. 

The hank below 
the track was very 
steep and the abil¬ 
ity of the ditcher 
to place this heavy 
riprap stone solved 
a knotty problem for the 
road — not to speak of the 
saving effected. 


The speed and ability of the 
American Railroad Ditcher to work 
in close quarters makes it an ideal 
machine for placing stone riprap 
along river hanks to prevent wash¬ 
outs. Its value for this sort of work 
was demonstrated by the Big Four 
several years ago. 

Along; the White Water River 
the tracks of the Big Four run along 
the top of the steep banks which, 
when the river is in flood, are eroded 
rapidly. In order to prevent this 
and protect its tracks the Big Four 
Road undertook to place heavy stone 
riprap on the hank at the more 
exposed places. The stones weighed 
from ^ to 6 tons and were brought 


0*3 [ 41 ] ©fo 









The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


LIGHT WRECKING 


On account of the fact that the 
American Railroad Ditcher is easily 
prepared lor shipment, and can be 
hustled to the scene of a wreck long 
before the regular wrecker could be 
got ready, it is often used as a 
wrecking crane for handling light 
wrecks. Its sturdy build enables 

J 

the American to handle loads that 
look totally beyond its capacity. 
In this way, by preventing a tie-up 
of even but a few hours’ duration, 
an American can save hundreds of 
dollars for the road. 

When nine cars, four box-cars 
and five Hats went off the track and 


turned over, on the Jonesboro, Lake 
City & Eastern, the road’s Ameri¬ 
can Railroad Ditcher was detailed 
to pick up the wreckage and open 
up the line for traffic. The cars 
had gone off a trestle 8 feet high, 
landing in a heap in 4 feet of water. 

Three of the Hat cars were picked 
up first and put on their own trucks 
on the track. The other two fiats 
were placed upon these. The 
American picked up the flat car 
bodies, without the trucks, and lifted 
them high enough to load on the 
other fiats. The box cars were 
handled one end at a time. 




[ 42 ] »No 










FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


LOCOMOTIVE CRANE WORK 



The probabilities are that sooner 
or later every owner of an Ameri¬ 
can Railroad Ditcher finds himself 
with an emergency locomotive 
crane job to do, and no crane avail¬ 
able. Being up against it, he natu¬ 
rally sends his utility player, the 
American to tackle the job. Almost 
invariably he is surprised and de¬ 
lighted at the way the machine 
does the work, and thereafter it is 
increasingly hard to confine the 
machine exclusively to ditching 
work. 

Up to its capacity, the American 
Railroad Ditcher really is a “top 
notch” locomotive crane. It will 
handle with speed and complete 
safety any load up to 5 tons. It 
slews a full circle, travels in either 
direction under its own power, is 
economical of coal, and is inde¬ 
pendent of the permanent track, 
being equipped with portable track 
sections, which it transfers as it 
progresses. 


Practically every road owning an 
American has used it for locomo¬ 
tive crane work. 

The Southern Railway used one 
of their Americans to load some 6- 
yard dump cars into fiats. The cars 
weighed 8 tons apiece, and one which 
was partly filled with dirt weighed 
more than that. Six of these cars 
were loaded in 38 minutes actual 
working time. 

The Idaho N Washington North¬ 
ern Railroad Company have used 
their American extensively for loco¬ 
motive crane work about the shops 
and yards, and out on the line. It 
is interesting to note that these 
people bought an auxiliary car 
body, mounted on 8-wheel swiveling 
trucks on which they mounted their 
ditcher for locomotive crane work 
in the winter. They have picked 
up wrecks, handled ties 86 at a 
time, picked up and loaded a 3-yard 
shovel and shovel arm for a large 
steam shovel, etc. This machine 


[ 4 3 ] S 4 o 












The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


has also been used to load and un¬ 
load rails, lay track, load logs, ties 
and timbers and for miscellaneous 
“ B. & B.” work. 

The Waterloo, Cedar Falls & 
Northern Railway Company is an¬ 
other road that has used its Ameri¬ 
can Ditcher effectively for doing 
locomotive crane work. Most of 
their work was done around the 
shops, handling car wheels, parts of 
trucks, etc. 

When the Santa Fe’s yard crane 
at San Bernardino, California, broke 
down they pressed one of their 
American Railroad Ditchers into 
service to take its place, which the 



American did in an entirely satis¬ 
factory manner. 

J 

Foley Brothers used their Ameri- 

J 

can Railroad Ditcher to lift a 
40-foot gasoline launch out of 
Lake Nipigon and place it on a 
Hat car for shipment. The launch 
weighed in the neighborhood of 
7000 pounds and the water was 
12 or 15 feet below the rails. As 
the ditcher was mounted on a flat 
car, it will be seen that the lift 
was considerable. 




[ 44 ] ©£> 
















FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


TRAVELER FOR 

The American Railroad Ditcher 
has been used so extensively lor this 
class ot work that it is difficult to 
decide just what specific operation 
to describe at len gth, as best empha¬ 
sizing the ability ot the American 
to do this class ot work speedily 
and economically. 

However, because it combined 
rapid emergency work with low cost, 
we believe that the trestle building 
job ot one ot the Missouri Pacific's 
American Railroad Ditchers per¬ 
haps will serve to illustrate most 
strikingly the ability ot the Ameri¬ 
can to handle this important class 
ot w r ork. 

On May 30th a tornado struck 
Lawrence, Nebraska, and did serious 
damage. Among other things, it 
wrecked a high timber trestle on 
the Missouri Pacific and completely 
tied up the line. The all-important 
thing for the railroad then, of 
course, was to get the bridge rebuilt 
and up again for traffic. The nearest 


“B. & B.” WORK 

American was at Auburn, Nebraska, 
and at 8 p. m. a hurry-up call w r as 
sent in tor it to leave at once via 
the C. Ik & lor Lawrence. At 
midnight on Friday, the 31st, the 
American reached Lawrence and 
tied up until 5 a. m. at which 
time work was commenced on the 
bridge. 

All timbers were handled and 
hoisted into place by the American. 
The bents were built fiat on the 
ground and then hoisted into place 
by the ditcher and held in position 
while the bridge gang braced them. 
While hoisting and setting the bents 
the ditcher was chained to the car, 
but for placing the stringers, ties, 
rails, etc., it was left loose so that it 
could run back to the material car 
and pick up the material. Work 
was pushed rapidly and kept up tor 
1 2 and 14 hours a day, and by noon 
of the following Tuesday the bridge 
was done and the line reopened — 
4 days to complete the job. 



oHX [ 45 ] 






The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


I he cost of doing this work with 
the American was 40 per cent 
under the advance estimates of the 
men in charge, and they said that 
if they had been forced to depend 
on hand labor to rebuild the bridge 
it would have taken three 1 o-men 
gangs 8 days to do it; and mustering 
gangs like this on such short notice 
is not the easiest thing in the world 
these days. 

WRECKING OLD BRIDGES 
AND TRESTLES 

The American has also been 
used extensively for taking down 
old bridges and trestles. It does 
such work so cheaply that some 
roads have found it economical to 
pick up and dispose of old bridge 
material which otherwise would 


have been left upon the ground, 
because it would cost more to pick 
it up than could he realized from 
its sale. 




[ 46 ] 












FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


RAISING 

At this class of work the American 
has demonstrated its ability to greatly 
reduce the size of the labor gang 
required and to simplify and speed 
up the work generally. 

In the summer of 1916, the 
Chicago, Aliiwaukee & St. Paul road 
distributed 15 miles of gravel near 
Aladison, South Dakota. The gravel 
was unloaded from hopper bottom 
cars and the work of raising was 
then started, with a gang of 45 
laborers. The work had no more 
than got well started, however, when 
trouble with the laborers developed 
and, eventually, it became necessary 
to let the whole gang go when only 
about 4 miles of the gravel had been 
put under. This left the road facing a 
serious problem, as the gravel, which 
had been dumped on the track filed 
it inside and out to such an extent 


TRACK 

that it would be impossible to run 
a danger or a snow plow. Hiring 
another gang was out of the question, 
yetsomething had to be done. In his 
dilemma, W. H. Crahbs, the road- 
master in charge, suddenly thought 
of his American Railroad Ditcher, 
as many another good roadmaster 
has done when in trouble. He 
took off the shovel and shovel arm, 
leaving the bail and bail block in 
place. Then he had a sort of spreader 
attachment made with a rail tong 
fastened to a chain at either side. 
He then set the American and a 
crew of 14 laborers at the track¬ 
raising job. 

The ditcher fulfilled Air. Crabbs’ 
expectations so well that in 17 days 
the first raise of 6 to 8 inches was 
completed on 11 miles of track, an 
average of over ^000 feet a day. 



V 













The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


CLEANING UP SLIDES 



Every year railroad men in all 
parts ol this country and Canada 
have reason to bless the American 
Railroad Ditcher tor its slide fighting 
value. This includes its activities 
in widening and adequately ditching 
deep cuts, which is the proper way 
to combat slides, of course. But this 
cannot always be done, and slides 
are bound to occur now and then, 
calling tor “emergency” treatment. 

The American Railroad Ditcher 
is an ideal slide-fighting machine, 
especially in cramped quarters. 
When a steam shovel is available and 
it is possible to cast over the material 
or load it onto cars on a passing 
track the steam shovel does very 
well, but it is seldom indeed that all 
these conditions jibe. Generally, the 
steam shovel is in a pit at the other 
end of the line and when this isn't 
the case the slide most likely is in 
a narrow cut where the digging 
will have to be straight ahead 
and the dumping into cars directly 


behind; and this is decidedly out ol 
the steam shovel’s line. It’s a case 
of either a hand crew or an American 
Railroad Ditcher; and a hand crew is 
neither fast enough nor economical 
enough to handle slides satisfactorily; 
so that the case really narrows down 
to the old reliable American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher, which can he moved 
at train speed on its flat car from 
any point of the line long before a 
steam shovel could he prepared to 
make the journey. 

Following are a few brief state- 
ments of the American’s slide¬ 
handling ability. 

O J 

The Baltimore N Ohio used one 
of its Americans with great suc¬ 
cess near Fairmont, West Virginia, 
cleaning up a bad slide. The slide 
was a heavy one which derailed 
several cars. They tried to clean 
it up with a steam shovel, the 
intention being to cast the material 
over into a creek bed that paralleled 
the track, but the steam shovel 


[ 48 ] S 4 c 





FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


boom was not long enough to 
dump the material clear of the 
roadway. The American Ditcher 
was steered into the slide, which it 
cast over cleanly at the rate of 75 
yards an hour. The material was 
yellow clay mixed with rock, and 
so sticky that every dipperful had to 
be poked out with the plunger. 

The Louisville 6c Nashville also 
had a gratifying experience with 
the slide handling ability of the 
American. One of their contractors 
accidentally set oft a blast of storage 
powder and dynamite consisting of 
55 kegs of powder and 250 pounds 
of dynamite near Irvine, Kentucky, 
on the L. 6c A. branch. The 
explosion caused a big “slip” which 
completely buried the track. The 
American was ordered out at once. 
It headed into the slide at 1 p. M. 
and at 9 p. m. the same night the 
slide was cleaned up and traffic 
reopened. Short rail sections were 


used to enable the ditcher to get 
close in, and the material was cast 
over the embankment. In 8 hours, 
the machine handled 1100 yards. 
The L. 6c N. organized this machine 
into a regular “Slide Patrol.” Every 
morning it was sent out i ]/ 2 or 2 
hours ahead of the first train. In 
this way it cleaned up many slides 
which would otherwise have de¬ 
layed train service. 

When a clouldburst caused a 
series of bad slides along the main 
line of the Ore.-Wash. R. R. 6c 
Nav. Co., near La Grande, Oregon, 
the American saved this road from a 
serious tie-up of traffic. Material 
had been washed onto the track to 
a depth of from 2 to 10 feet, for a 
distance of 400 feet. This material 
was of such a character that it would 
have been extremely difficult to 
handle it with teams and scrapers or 
pick and shovel. But the American 
cleaned it up completely in 6 hours. 



<*« [ 49 ] 






The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


SNOW HANDLING 



Snow handling usually is an 
emergency job which must be 
cleaned up quickly. During the 
last 2 or 3 years, since the labor 
shortage became acute, many roads 
have been caused no end of trouble 
by heavy snow; but they were not 
roads that own American Railroad 
Ditchers. Many roads have tried out 

J 

the American as a snow handler, and 
all have found it to be speedy and 
efficient. The experience of the 
Copper Range Railway is a good 
typical case. In the winter the 
problem of keeping their yards clear 
of snow is a serious one with them. 
After every heavy snow-fall it is 
necessary to remove the snow piled 
up between the tracks by the plows. 


When done by hand labor, this was 
always a slow and expensive job, but 
since they started to do it with their 
American they have had no trouble. 
For this work they equip their 
ditcher with a 2-yard clam-shell 
bucket and mount it on a flat car 
between two 50-yard gondolas. With 
this outfit they have handled 650 
yards of snow in 7 hours. The 




[ 50 ] ^0 






FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


American also unloads the snowfrom 
the gondolas. Of course if dump 
cars had been available more snow 
could have been handled. 

This work was done in the 
Copper Range Railway’s yards at 


Houghton, Hancock and Calumet, 
Michigan, and officials of this road 
state that the American has handled 
snow at a saving of 75 per cent over 
what it used to cost them when they 
did the work with hand labor. 


SETTING TROLLEY POLES 


Setting poles along the right-of- 
way is a job, which can run into a 
lot of money if it has to be done 
with a hand crew. However, a 
number of roads owning American 
Railroad Ditchers have found a way 
to do this work for a very low figure 
and much faster than it could be 
done the old way. 

We have record of a number of 
roads that used an American Rail¬ 
road Ditcher to distribute and set 
poles and the method of each varied 
to some extent from that of the others. 
Perhaps the way the Waterloo, Cedar 
Falls and Northern Railroad Com¬ 
pany went at it is most typical. 

On this operation, the ditcher 
was mounted on a fiat car with the 
poles on a car behind it. One man 
on the pole car fastened the lifting 
chain to the poles while another 
man on the ground guided the poles 
into place, the holes having been dug 
previously. These 2 men, with the 
operator and fireman of the ditcher, 


did work which formerly it had 
taken 42 men to do. That is 4 
men and the American Railroad 
Ditcher set as many poles in a day 
as 42 men would have been able 



to set. The poles set varied from 
2 y to 60 feet in length and they 
were 7 inches in diameter at the 
small end. 

The poles were set 1 00 feet apart. 
To illustrate the speed at which 
the work was done, from the time 
the chain was unhooked from the 
pole,until the train moved ahead and 
the next pole was set and the chain 
ready to unhook again, the elapsed 
time averaged 1 p? minutes. 


OfS [ 51 ] ^0 









The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


STUBBING TROLLEY POLES 


The Spokane N Inland Empire 
System, an electric line which runs 

from Spokane 
(Washington) to 
Coeur d’ Alene 
(Idaho), Palouse 
(Washington), 
and other points 
in this rich agri¬ 
cultural section, 
decided to give 
their American 
Railroad Ditcher 
a try at stubbing 
trolley poles 
which had rotted at the ground line; 
so they rigged up a set ol light swing¬ 
ing leads, hung them to the point 


of the ditcher boom and drove the 
stubs in a fraction ol the time that 
it would have taken to set them by 
hand. What was more important, 
they saved about 75 per cent ol what 
it would have cost them to do the 
work by hand, and did a better job, 
for the earth around a stub that has 
been placed in a hand-dug hole is 
solt, while the earth around the stubs 
driven by the American was compact 
and held them rigidly. 

The American drove stubs at any 
angle and averaged a stub every 5 
minutes when it was not necessary 
to move farther than the next pole 
(1 20 feet). 



RAIL HANDLING 


Rail handling is one ot the 
“orneriest” propositions the railroad 
man has to contend with, where hand 
labor is used. In the first place, a hand 
crew of 25 or 30 men is absolutely 
necessary where 90 or ioo-pound 
steel is handled and, naturally, the 
heavier the steel the less they do. 

But the cost and slowness of the 
gang method of handling rails is not 
its only drawback; the big crew 
required causes confusion, and con¬ 
fusion is a great breeder ot accidents. 
Serious injuries to laborers are not 
at all infrequent. Moreover, rails 
thrown from a Hat car by a hand 
crew are not going to be improved 
noticeably in the process. In fact, 


it is said that wrecks have been 
traced to rails injured, when thrown 
from cars. Another thing, it is 
very certain that no good is done 
to the ballast berm by dumping 
rails upon it. 

When we say that the American 
Railroad Ditcher is the most efficient 
and economical rail handler made, 
we only repeat a statement made by 
practically every railroad man who 
has used the machine for this work. 
Its first move in the direction of 
economy and efficiency is to make 
possible a reduction in the crew of 
from 30 men to 6. This crew is 
made up of the operator and fireman 
of the ditcher, and 4 laborers. 


#3 [ 5 2 ] 





FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


UNLOADING RAILS 

The Susquehanna and New York 
Railroad Company have used their 
American Railroad Ditcher unload¬ 
ing rails and have made some re¬ 
markably low handling cost records. 

On August 8th, 1915, they unloaded 
and distributed along the main track 
lor relaying, 200 tons of 8o-pound 
rail with work train and American 
Ditcher. Unloading started at 9:45 
a. m. and completed at 5:30 p. m. 

During the work it was necessary 
to clear lor six regular trains, which 
were passed at a siding 2 miles 
from the work. The cost was 22 
cents per gross ton, including work 
train and crew. 

The Chicago Great Western 
Railroad Company has used its 
three Americans with great success 
for unloading rails. It is not an 
unusual thing lor them to unload 
a gondola loaded with ninety 33- 
foot, ioo-pound rails in one hour, 
placing them on either side ol 
right-of-way in proper position lor 
laying. They have unloaded ninety 
33-foot rails in 35 minutes, placing 



hour, but loaded as many as 97 rails 
(50 tons) in 40 minutes. 'The average 
daily loading record was 1000 rails, 
and the saving over the cost ol doing 
the same work with a hand crew 
S35.00 per day. 


the rails at each side of the track 
ready lor laying. 

The Vandalia Railroad used an 
American Railroad Ditcher with 
great success unloading 1 oo-pound 
steel. They averaged 100 rails an 



[ 53 ] 







The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


LOADING RAILS 



When the Northern Pacific Rail¬ 
road put an extra gang of 30 men 
to work loading 70-pound steel 
and all conditions were favorable 
they expected to get about 600 rails 
loaded a day, an average of one 
rail a minute. When the same crew 
was put to work loading 85 and 90- 
pound rails, the daily average fell 
to 500 rails — and at that they 
couldn’t always get the laborers 
when they wanted them. 

So one day they “sicced” one 
of their Americans on the job. The 
crew consisted of the operator, 


a fireman and 3 laborers — 5 men 
in all, not counting the train crew. 
Working at a moderate gait the 
American easily loaded 1000 rails 
in 10 hours—and it didn’t make 
a bit of difference whether the rails 
were 70-pound or 90-pound. 

As a general thing, when the 
American is used for loading rails 
a crew of 3 laborers is used besides 
the engineer and his fireman. Two 
of the men are stationed on the 
ground; one to hook the tongs and 
the other to guide the rail as it is 
swung into position. 



[ 54 ] && 










FOURTEEN YEARS ON TINE 


LOADING RAILS 

Based on the results obtained by the Northern Pacific the saving 
effected by the American over the hand crew figures out as follows: 


Ditcher operator, per day.$5.00 

Ditcher engineer, per day.2.50 

Three laborers at $2.00 per day.6.00 

Coal, oil, etc., per day. 2.50 

Cost of operating ditcher, per day. $16.00 

Cost of work train, per day.$35.00 

Cost per rail, exclusive of work train expense.$0,016 

Cost per rail, including cost of work train.$0,051 


Cost of doing work with hand crew of 30 men, based on $2.00 per day, per man. 
30 x $2.00 = $60.00, total cost of hand crew per day. 

Six hundred 70-pound rails per day at labor cost of $60.00; 10 cents per rail, 
exclusive of cost of work train. 

Five hundred 90-pound rails per day at labor cost of $60.00; 12 cents per rail, 
exclusive of cost of work train. 

Cost of loading by hand with cost of train figured in. 

$35.00, cost of work train per day. 

$60.00, labor cost per day. 

$95.00, dailv expense loading by hand. 

Six hundred 70-pound rails at $95.00 = .158 per rail. 

Five hundred 90-pound rails at $95.00 = .19 per rail. 

This shows a saving tor the American of from $0,107 to $0,139 per rail. 

Above figures are based on pre-war costs 


OTHER ADVANTAGES 


In addition to actual saving per 
rail affected by the American, there 
are other advantages well worth con¬ 
sideration; cars are more uniformly 
loaded, ballast berm is not damaged 
by men tramping on it, the danger 
of injuring the men is eliminated; 
and bunking, feeding and transport¬ 
ing the hand crew is done away with. 
Furthermore, when bad weather 
prevents work, only a limited number 
of men are idle. The American 


handles to or from a gondola as 
easily as a flat, while men cannot 
load into a gondola at all. An es¬ 
pecially great advantage which the 
American possesses is that it can pick 
up rails out of water and from behind 
telegraph poles, and pull them up 
steep grades. It is not necessary to 
stop the train when picking up rails; 
with the American, rails can be 
picked up from both sides of the 
track and the train kept on the move. 


[ 55 ] 












The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


HANDLING TIES 


Several years ago on the Atlantic 
Coast Line, they began to load 
their ties on flat cars with one 
of their American Railroad Ditchers 
and found that they were able to 


Two laborers on the ground placed 
the chain around the bundles, two 
on top of the car squared up the 
load, and fastened the piles with load 
binders. 



save more than a cent a tie over the 
old method of loading by hand into 
box cars. The ties were piled on 
the Hat cars lengthwise in three piles 
of 75 ties each, 300 in all. 

The ties loaded were piled along 
the track according to A. C. L. 
specifications in piles of 16 and 2. 
The piles of ties were 20 feet from 
the track, with a ditch between. 


Six hundred and fifty ties were 

J 

loaded per hour, the cost per day 
being as follows: 


COST OF LOADING PER DAY 


Operator at $100.00 a month . 

$4.00 

Eight laborers at $1.50 a day . 

1 2.00 

Fireman at $1.50 a dav . 

1.50 

Coal, y± ton at $3.50 . 

2.62 

Oil, waste, etc. 

.50 

Interest on ditcher at 6 per cent 
on $6,200.00 .... 

1.20 

Depreciation on ditcher at 6 per 
cent. 

1.20 

Interest on car equipment 

.41 

Depreciation on car equipment at 
25 per cent. 

'•73 

Total. 

; ^ 

1 1 ^ 
Csl 


Above figures based on pre-war costs 


[ 56 ] B 4 o 






























FOURTEEN YEARS ON FINE 


Working 6 hours a day, loading 
650 ties an hour, will load 3900 ties 
a day, at a cost of 30.0064 per tie. 
The actual cost of loading ties hy 
hand into box cars is not less than 
2 cents each. Thus the American 
Railroad Ditcher will load ties onto 
hat cars at a cool saving of $0.0 1 36 


per tie. At that, the table includes 
many cost items not taken into ac¬ 
count when ties are handled the 
old way. 

Loading, say, 1,000,000 ties a 
year at a saving of $0.0136 per 
tie will amount to $13,600.00 
per year. 


ROAD BUILDING 


One of the best all-around samples 
of the road-building ability of the 
American Railroad Ditcher was ex¬ 
hibited during the construction of 
a 6400 foot spur by the Cleveland 
Cliffs Iron Company. The ditcher 


did all the work from the initial 
clearing and grading to surfacing the 
track. 

The cost of work done on this 
spur hy the American was distributed 
as follows : 


Clearing.$243.98 

Grading. 724.36 

Ties.498.75 

Laving and lifting steel.374.29 

Surfacing. 2 3 3 * -7 9 

Engineering. 87.90 

Surveys. 11.80 

Depreciation boarding cars. 18.66 

Total.$2193.43 


The original estimate of the cost of doing the work was $2266.00, so they beat 
it by $73.00. 

ESTIMATE OE HAND WORK 
Clearing 8.81 acres at $35.00 per acre. 

Grading 3 251 cubic yards of earth at 21 cents per cubic yard, $682.71. 
Grubbing 448 square rods at $1.15 per square rod, $515.20. 

Surfacing 6400 feet at $4.00 per too feet, $256.00. 


ESTIMATED COST OF HAND WORK COMPARED WITH THE 
COST OF DOING IT WITH DITCHER 


Estimated Cost 
of Hand Work 

Cost with 

Ditcher 

Saving Effected 
by Ditcher 

Clearing 

$ 3 o8 -*° 

$243.98 

$64.12 

Grading 

1197.9 1 

724.36 

473-55 

Surfacing 

256.00 

233-76 

22.24 


$i762.01 

$ I 202. I O 

$ 559 - 9 * 


Or a saving of 32U per cent. Prices based on pre-war costs. 


o *3 [ 57 ] G& 























The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


CLEARING 


The Cleveland Cliffs people found 
that all that was necessary was to 
move the cordwood and salable 


stuff back out of the way, and that 
the machine would take care of 
the rest. 


GRADING 


The grading, which combines 
grubbing and earthwork, shows the 
largest saving. They used only about 


half as much dynamite as under old 
methods; a very important saving 
in their country of heavy grubbing. 


SURFACING 


While the saving shown in the 
figures is small they did an A No. i 
job and put the track in such 
shape that it will require very little 
attention for the time that it is in. 


This item also includes the cost of 
putting in tieplates and braces, 
which had not been done before 
and which increased the cost ma¬ 
terially. 



[ 58 ] £4e 














FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


HOW BIG LOGGING COMPANIES USE TIIE 

FOR ROAD BUILDING 


AMERICAN 


% 



securing enough men to put the 
work through on time. 

On account of its quickness, adapt¬ 
ability and strength the American 
Railroad Ditcher was given a try 
at this work. It made good at 
once. It was tried out at every¬ 
thing, from making the initial cuts 
and tills to laying and ballasting 
track, and when it got done they 
quit calling it a ditcher and called 
it the American Road Builder. 

On the following pages we will 
give a brief account of some of the 
high spots of the road - building 
work of the American. 


Every year the large logging 
companies construct many miles of 
new track and tear up much old 
track from logged over sections. 
Much depends on the economy and 
rapidity with which this important 
track work can be done. Long ago, 
the idea of doing it with labor 
gangs had to be given up, partly 
on account of the expense, partly on 
account of the growing difficulty of 


I 




^3 [ 59 ] 










The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 



Grading for Logging Track 
















FOURTEEN YEARS ON EINE 


GRADING FOR TOGGING TRACK 


While most logging roads must 
traverse very difficult country, their 
temporary nature makes it neces¬ 
sary to hold the construction cost 
down to the lowest possible figure. 
When labor is scarce and costly, it 
is hard to make much of a showing 
at this work in the way of low cost 
figures. 'The Potlatch Lumber Com¬ 
pany, however, has found a way to 
do this and make itself practically 
independent of the labor situation. 
It accomplishes this by building its 
road complete, from initial grub¬ 
bing and grading to laying track, 
with the AmericanRailroad Ditcher. 

The work being of a temporary 
character, considerable latitude is 
allowable in the method used, the 
main idea being to get logs to 
the mill at the lowest cost per foot. 
Things that would give a regular 
railroad man the “jim-jams” are 
perfectly “de rigger” in building a 
logging road; for instance, the way 
the Potlatch Lumber Company 
makes fills when material is scarce. 
First, let us explain that the general 
practice followed by these people 
in making fills is to dig out dirt 
on the side with the ditcher and 
dump in front, moving the ditcher 
forward over the fill as completed. 
The weight of the ditcher and its 


portable track sections helps to com¬ 
pact the fill. Sometimes, of course, 
the fill has to be made pretty high; 
so high that it is impossible to 
reach all the material needed with 
the regular dipper. In a case 
like that the ditcher pulls in logs 
from the sides and piles them up in 
front so as to build up the fill. 
Material is then dug from the sides 
and placed on top of them to bring 
the fill up to grade. No cars at all 
are used in the work of grading, 
the American does it all. 

The Potlatch people, not long 
ago completed a logging spur on 
which the ditcher made an 8-foot 
cut on a 6 per cent grade. The cut 
was about ^oo feet long. The 
ditcher also made an 8 to io-foot 
fill 500 feet long. This was a 4 
per cent grade. 

Short rail sections are used for 
this work, and as much of the time 
the ditcher has to work over soft 
new fill and sometimes over swampy 
ground, ties are spiked to the short 
rail sections very close together to 
give a solid working base. 

In grading with the American 
they move from 400 to 800 yards 
a day, depending on the nature of 
the ground and the interference 
from trees. 


[ 6l] ©Jo 




The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


LAYING LOGGING TRACK 


When the Potlatch Lumber 
Company wants to lay a new logging 
spur the American is headed into the 
work with a car of rails and a car 
of ties behind it, the rail car being 
placed next to the ditcher. They 
use 6o-pound rails, 33 feet long, 
and pole ties, 17 ties being used to 
each rail length. The ties are piled 
high on the car. Two men on 
the tie car make the ties up into 
bundles, which are picked up by 
the ditcher and swung around onto 
the grade ahead. Six men on the 
ground place these ties in position. 
One man is used on the rail car to 
hook the center tongs, which are 
of a special, non-teetering type. 
There is one bolter out in front of 
the ditcher and two men to heel the 
rail into the rail joints and put on 
the bridles. There are thus 1 1 men 
on the ground ahead of the ditcher. 


The angle bars are piled on the 
forward end of the rail car and there 
is one man whose job it is to put 
these on the rails. One man is 
employed in carrying bridles ahead, 
to be used as fast as rail is laid up to 



them. These, together with the 
operator and fireman of the ditcher, 
make the crew actually employed 
in laying track consist of 16 men. 
The gang being made up as follows: 

Six men ahead on the ties 
One bolter 


Two men laying rails and put- 












FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


PICKING UP OLD TRACK 


The spiking crew working behind 
the ditcher was made up ot 2 bolters, 
15 spikers and 1 spike peddler—18 
men in all—which brings the total 
of the track-laying gang up to 34 
men. This crew with the American, 
can lay 3000 feet of track a day on 
heavy grades, and where there are 
trees on the right-of-way which 
must he cleared off. Without these 
hampering conditions they claim 
that they could lay a mile of track 
a day without any trouble at all. 

All the extra equipment they 
require is two tie slings, made from 
a couple ot lengths ot cable, with a 
hook on each end, and a pair of 
rail tongs. 

The method ot handling rails is 
shown in one ot the accompanying 
pictures. The American runs out 
to the end of the car so as to swing 
the near end ot the rail slightly 
beyond the rail joint. The machine 
then backs up until the line that 
holds the rail is at a considerable 
angle, in which position the weight 
of the rail pushes itself into the rail 
joint. The rail tongs are constructed 


so that they release as soon as the 
rail rests on the ties. 

By using the ditcher for laying 
track the Potlach Lumber Company 
saves the wages ot 25 men a day. 
As they are paying this kind of labor 
3 3.5 0 a day, the saving is a worth¬ 
while one. 

For taking up old track and loading 
the material, the Potlatch Lumber 
Company organize their work train 
and crew as follows: The American 
Railroad Ditcher on its flat car is 
coupled between two empty flats. 
The car in front of the ditcher being 
intended for the rails that are picked 
up, and the one behind it for the ties. 
The crew is made up as follows: 

Two men on the ditcher 
Four men pulling spikes 
Two unbolters 
Four men bunching ties 
One rail and tong shooter 
One spike picker 
Total, 14 men 

These men are all working in 
front of the work train. Behind it 
is another gang made up of 4 
spike pullers, 2 unbolters, 1 spike 
picker—7 men in all. There are 
also 4 tie pilers on the car. 



<£3 [ 63 ] e^-c 




The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 



which is then picked up and placed 
on the car ahead. 

The Potlatch people used two rail 
tongs for this work and were able to 
pick up about 3000 feet a day and 
do away with a gang of from 1 6 to 
20 men, whom they would have had 
to pay S3.50 a day. 

The Potlatch people also have 
another way of doing this same work. 
They put the American on the rear 
end of the train with the rail car 
immediately in front of it and the 
tie car in front of that. With this 
arrangement it is very much easier 
to pick up the rails and ties. They 
use trams which run back and forth 
on the rail car to carry the ties up to 
the tie car. These trams are merely 
sections of live rollers like those used 
in lumber mills. 

About the same amount of work 
can be done with this arrange¬ 
ment as with the one previously 
described,and it depends some¬ 
what on the grades and curves 
which method is used. 


W 


The men in front of the work train 
pull half of the spikes and remove all 
but one bolt from the rail joints. 
When the train has passed over the 
track, the crew behind removes 
the rest of the spikes, and the re¬ 
maining bolts and angle bars. The 
angle bars are removed entirely and 
placed on the end of the car. 

While the ditcher boom is not 
long enough, of course, to reach 
across the rail car and pick up the 
rails and ties on a straight lift, this 
is done by turning the boom at a 
slight angle to the track, hooking 
on the rail tongs, and giving a 
slight jerk. This pulls the end of 
the loose rail free and then they 
snake it along the ground until 
they can get a straight lift on it, 
when one of the men shoves the 
tongs to the center of the rail, 


[ 64 ] Bic 








FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


A FEW “REASONS WHY” 

there are over 500 Americans in daily use on both large and small roads. 
I his is told you in the words of people who are not trying to sell you 
something but are glad they bought Americans. Properly interested 
parties will he referred to these or any number of other satisfied American 
Ditcher owners. 


HAVE ANOTHER AMERICAN ON ORDER 

“W e make our American Ditchers do what we want them to do, and we also find 
that the American can be made to do it. We have another American on order and 
are anxiously awaiting delivery, as we contemplate a busy ditching season for all 
four of our machines for the year 1919.” Qreggn shon Une Railroaa 


PAID FOR ITSELF IN TWO WEEKS 

“The machine has proven very satisfactory as a railroad ditcher and has already 
(in service two weeks) more than paid f or itself in this class of work.” 

/daho id Washington Northern R ailroad 


NINE TO THIRTEEN CENTS PER YARD 

“Our American has been ditching and putting the dirt on the dump on a weekly 
average of from 9 to 13 cents per yard. I think between 10 and it cents would 
be a general average.” (At prices prevailing in 1914-) Santa Fe System 


BEST LIKED MACHINERY WE HAVE 

“l am handling rour steam ditchers made by your company, and will say that 
they are really the most popular and best liked machinery we have. I am outlining 
a future, which if carried, will call for more of these machines.” (They now have eight.) 

Rock Island System 


VALUABLE IN SMALL WRECKS 

“I am not able to tell you the exact amount of yardage it will handle, but would 
unhesitatingly recommend the use of this machine with the ditcher-shovel attach¬ 
ment. You know you can take this off and it can be used for unloading coal, 
loading cinders, and in fact, doing most any kind of work. The shovel can be 
removed in about an hour, and it then becomes a first-class crane. It is also very 
valuable in small wrecks, as a wrecking outfit.” 

Arkansas, Ijouisiana Gf Gulf Railway 
(The above was written to a third party who later bought an American.) 

[ 65 ] £& 




The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 



r 'X~ 

ft 

fell'! 

KANSAS^-CITY i 




c t 

















FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


MACHINE WOULD SAVE MONEY 

“I am trying to get one of our American Ditchers from another division, but so 
far have failed because they are all busy. Insofar as I am concerned, it would be a 
waste of time to send a man to see me, as I am thoroughly convinced of the merits 
of the machine, and know that it would save money for the railroad company.” 

Santa Fe System 


PAY EOR THEMSELVES THE FIRST YEAR 
“They easily pay for themselves the first year of their work in money saved.” 

Rock Island System 

MOST PROFITABLE INVESTMENT EVER MADE 

“I am pleased to state that the American Railroad Ditcher you sold us one year 
ago has given a most excellent account of itself and we believe it to be one of the 
most profitable investments in the way of machinery this company has ever made.” 

Fort Smith id Western Railroad Company 


SHOULD BE ON EVERY ROAD 

“The American Ditcher should be on every road in the country. A first-class 
road is not properly equipped without it.” . Ro(k hland System 

DOING THE WORK OF 125 MEN 

“It is a pleasure for me to say the American Ditcher is coming up to my 
expectations in every respect, and I am truly proud of the machine. It is doing 
the work of at least 125 men, for which we would have to pay each $1.25 per 

day. (Pievading in 1914.) Georgia & Florida Railroad 


CANNOT RECOMMEND IT TOO HIGHLY 

“During the recent troubles we had in the Cascade Mountains, the American 
Ditcher was the greatest help we had in opening the line, and I cannot recommend 

it too highly. Chicago , Milwaukee id St. Paul Railway 


PAID FOR ITSELF THE FIRST SUMMER 

“We consider it paid for itself the first summer, and in a country where so much 
ditching is required, as is the case with us, we could not afford to be without it.” 

Minnesota id International Railway Company 
COST OF REPAIRS VERY LOW 

“For the past 6 months we have had one of the American Ditchers in use on 
this work and it is giving excellent service, the cost of repairs being very low.” 

Oregon Short Fine 


*3 [ 67 ] etc 



The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


THE AMERICAN BOOM POINT PLUNGER SAVED THE DAY 

“The material loaded today was the worst ot gumbo. X-Ditcher (not 

made by you) was working in this cut some time ago, and had to give it up because 
the gumbo stuck in the dipper and could not be removed with any degree ot 

success. The X - machine loaded four cars per day and we loaded eighteen cars 

with the American , and cleared for several trains. It would have been impossible 
to accomplish anything without the plunger at boom point of the American to push 

the gumbo out of the dipper.” Baltimore Ohio Railroad 


ELIMINATES WRECKER, CRANE AND STEAM SHOVEL 

“7 consider the American the best piece of machinery we have , and use it in a great 
many places where we heretofore found it necessary to have the wrecker, crane or 
steam shovel and crew, and which, of course, was always more expensive/’ 

Charles Hebard id Sons , Lumber Operators 


ACCOMPLISHED MORE THAN THEY EXPECTED 

“Our Superintendent of Tracks has told me that he has been doing work with 
the American that was not contemplated and that he did not suppose was possible to 
do with the machine when it was purchased. We have less than 100 miles of track. 
The American has proven to be a valuable machine in many ways, and the results 
have been everything you claim for it.” 

Lehigh id Hudson River Railway Companx 


SORRY DID NOT ORDER TWO AMERICANS 

“We are very much pleased with our American Road Builder and Ditcher, and 
do not see how we could get along without it. If we had known what we do now 
about this machine , we would have ordered two instead of one last fall, as we have 
plenty of work for two of these machines to do.” 

Marshall Butters Lumber Companx 


SIDE TRACKING H--L FOR US 


“ Beg to advise I am now using one of our American Ditchers on the- 

Division, and it certainly is sidetracking h—l for us. I cannot speak too highly for 


the American and the work it is doing for us.” 


Southern Railway Companx 


BEST MAINTENANCE TOOL THAT WE HAVE 

“We have fifteen of them in service on this line, and I am working one on this 
division. It has given excellent satisfaction and I consider it the best maintenance 

tool that we have." Northern Pacific Railway 


4*3 [ 68 ] 







FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


WORE OF AT LEAST ioo MEN 
“ I figure this machine will do the work of at least ioo men.” 

Raleigh id South-port Railway Company 


CANNOT GET ALONG WITHOUT IT 

“Our American Ditcher is doing fine, and I don’t see how we could get along 
without it. I never lose a chance to speak favorably of the American Railroad 
Ditcher. It is the best thing I have ever seen in the way of a ditcher.” 

Georgia id Florida Railway 

BEAT CONTRACTOR’S PRICE 32 CENTS PER YARD 

“The lowest bid we secured on this work from a contractor was 60 cents per 
yard, but we cleaned it up easily with the American at 28 cents per yard.” 

Susquehanna id New York Railroad 

AVERAGE FROM 22 TO 35 CARS DAILY 

“The American Railroad Ditcher is the best piece of machinery I ever had any 
experience with. I average from 22 to 35 cars daily, 20 yards to the car.” 

St. Louis Southwestern Railway 

LOAD 25 TO 30 CARS OF BALLAST WITHOUT ENGINE OR CREW 

FOR SPOTTING 

“You will note from enclosed picture, arrangement ot tracks allowing us to load 
a full train of cars without train crew or engine to do spotting. We easily load 
tw T enty to twenty-four 30-vard Rogers Ballast cars per day. Locals simply take 
out loads and put in empties.” 

Kansas City , Mexico id Orient Railway Company 

OPERATED 17 MONTHS WITHOUT DELAY FOR REPAIRS OR 

ADJUSTMENTS 

“One ot our American Railroad Ditchers was operated tor 17 months without 
losing any time due to repairs or adjustments. In all that time it was not neces¬ 
sary to adjust the frictions. 

Oregon Short lane 


S& [ 69 ] ©^e 




The AMERICAN RAILROAD DITCHER 


A CLINCHER 


One day while the president ol 
a southwestern railroad was riding 
over the line with a railroad con¬ 
tractor who had done a large amount 
of construction work for him, the 
conversation turned to the question 
of roadbed drainage, the president 
confessing that this was a problem 
that gave him unlimited grief. 

The contractor countered with a 
very natural suggestion: “Why don’t 
you get a couple of American Rail¬ 
road Ditchers,and cut out the grief?” 

“Can’t afford it!” said the presi¬ 
dent. “Why, Bill, just look at the 
investment it means, not only for 
the two American Ditchers, hut for 
the dump cars, spreader, fat cars, 
and engine that Ell have to keep 
tied up. Ilell, man, the very 
thought of it scares me to death!” 

“Yes that’s just the trouble,” 
replied the contractor, “you let the 
cost blind you to the results. Now, 
if I were in your boots, I’d get not 
one, hut two Americans, Ed put 
’em in one ditching train, to hold 
down the train service cost, and I 


wouldn’t be afraid to bet my last 

J 

shirt that they’d pay for themselves 
in a comparatively short time.” 

“Well, as long as you are so en¬ 
thusiastic,” said the president, with 
a smile, “and have such boundless 
faith in the American Railroad 
Ditcher, maybe you’ll be willing 
to gamble on it. You get the outfit 
and do the ditching. I’ll be satis¬ 
fied with a io-cent a yard saving 
on what it costs me now to do it 
with teams and labor. All you save 
under that will be your profit.” 

“You’re on!” said the contractor, 
“I’ve never owned an American 
but I've seen ’em work enough to 
know that this is no gamble that 
I’m taking up, hut a sure-shot win 
for me. I’ll he glad to take a 6- 
month contract at io cents a yard 

J 

less than it is costing you now to 
dig your ditches, but I warn you 
in advance that I’m going to make 
more than a legitimate profit on 
this deal. I want to say, though, 
that while it is not my nature to 
despise a profit, especially the kind 



[ 70 ] 





FOURTEEN YEARS ON LINE 


ot a profit I’m going to rake out 
of that job, I am even more 
anxious to prove my point, and 
therefore I’ll be willing to turn the 
American Hitchers over to you as 
soon as you are convinced of their 
value to your road.” 

The result was that two Ameri¬ 
can Railroad Ditchers were pur¬ 
chased by the contractor, and 
ditching operations begun with an 
American Double Ditcher work 
train. It took less than 4 months to 
convince the railroad president that 
this was the only economical way 

j J 

of digging right-of-way ditches, 
and at the end ot that time he was 
very glad to have the contractor 
fulfill his promise to turn the ma¬ 
chines over to the road. 

The railroad president had now 
been convinced of the value of the 
American for digging right-of-way 
ditches, he was soon to find out 
that it was just as efficient in other 
lines. 

I he second day after freezing 
weather forced the stoppage of 
ditching operations, an important 


coaling station was burned to the 
ground. Here was a situation that 
any railroad man can appreciate; 
engines to he coaled, and plenty of 
coal, but no way to handle it. 

As luck would have it, an Ameri¬ 
can salesman, the very one who 
had originally shown the value 
of the American Railroad Ditcher 
to the contractor, called on the 
chief engineer that day. lie heard 
about it and noticed the evident 
fiustration of all concerned. “Why 
all the excitement,” said he, “when 
you have two American Railroad 
Ditchers, either one capable of 
loading all your coal with a clam¬ 
shell ?” They grabbed at the sug¬ 
gestion as drowning men are reputed 
to grab at straws. An American 
was quickly rigged up with a clam¬ 
shell and soon engines were being 
coaled as smoothly as though noth¬ 
ing had happened. 

And that’s how it happens that 
the slogan of a certain southwestern 
railroad is: “Why worry when 
you have an American Railroad 
Ditcher r” 



^ [ 7 T ] 





Bartlett Orr Press, New York 

































